The Nicaraguan Medical Association in Exile (AMEN) criticized the Government on Tuesday for applying the Cuban vaccines Abdala and Soberana 02 against covid-19 to children from 2 years of age and older to adolescents of 17 years of age.
“Irresponsibly, the Government of Nicaragua is offering Nicaraguan parents the Cuban vaccines Soberana 01 and 02 and Abdala, which are still in the experimental phase for adult populations, lacking adequate scientific trials for children,” he said. AMEN, in a statement.
Nicaragua began on Monday to apply the Cuban vaccines Abdala and Soberana 02 to children from two years of age and older to adolescents of 17 years of age, and the Sputnik Light to people between 18 and 29 years of age.
AMEN criticized the Government of Daniel Ortega for acquiring “Russian and Cuban vaccines that are not approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).”
“In the case of Russian vaccines, at least they have published phase III research studies, this is not the case of Cuban vaccines, which are still in the experimental phase for adult populations, lacking adequate scientific trials for children ”, claimed that union.
“Experiment with children”
AMEN expressed its concern “that Cuban vaccines have been acquired with funds from the Republic’s budget and loans that have not yet published the results of their phase III investigations and that they have not yet started the registration process with the WHO. ”.
“In the absence of adequate scientific information, the offer of vaccines to the parents of Nicaraguan children becomes an experiment that violates bioethical norms since parents are not told that these vaccines are still in the experimental stage,” he denounced. .
Doctors who went into exile after suffering “harassment and repression” after the anti-government rebellion of 2018, affirmed that “Nicaraguans have the right to know the details of the scientific studies carried out with Cuban vaccine candidates.”
“We alert the population to seek and demand more information before making decisions that may affect the health of children,” he advocated.
The Government, through the Ministry of Health, intends to vaccinate 2.3 million minors with Cuban formulas.
The vice president of Nicaragua, Rosario Murillo, reported that between October 25 and 26, 186,532 minors between 2 and 17 years old were vaccinated. He explained that 110,844 inoculated girls and boys are minors between the ages of 2 and 11, achieving the vaccination of 8.9% of 1,336,681 minors who meet that age range.
He indicated that in the case of minors between the ages of 12 and 17, they have achieved the inoculation of 75,688; that is, 9.88% of a total goal of 775,505 adolescents.
Murillo explained that, parallel to the day of inoculation of minors between the ages of 2 and 17, young people between the ages of 18 and 29 have also been vaccinated with the Sputnik Light inoculant. Between October 25 and 26, he explained, 147,759 young people who meet those ages have been vaccinated, out of a total of 1,440,785 they hope to reach.
Seven million vaccines
The Ortega government has also announced that it will acquire a total of seven million doses of Cuban vaccines by the end of 2021.
At the end of 2020, Managua announced that it had 107 million dollars to purchase vaccines against covid-19, and later the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) granted the country a loan for 100 million dollars to purchase the formulas. .
“Unlike other Central American countries, the Nicaraguan government was not able to purchase vaccines authorized by the WHO, despite having loan funds from CABEI,” AMEN reproached in this regard.
That union also accused the Government of “administering the vaccines by drop” according to “their electoral political interests”, in view of the elections of next November 7, in which Ortega hopes to be reelected, and held him responsible for “thousands of covid-19 infections and the loss of thousands of lives due to this cause ”.
Since last week thousands of Nicaraguans of all ages have flocked to the Honduran border to be injected with Pfizer and Moderna formulas.
Nicaragua has not managed to vaccinate 20% of its population, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
The pandemic has left 208 dead and 16,442 confirmed cases of covid-19 since March 2020 in Nicaragua, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health. For its part, the network of doctors from the independent Covid-19 Citizen Observatory has reported 5,887 deaths from pneumonia and other symptoms related to the pandemic, as well as 31,036 suspected cases.
